Network Processor Module (NPM)
The NPM blade provides the switching fabric, physical interfaces, load balancing and routing functions for the platform. That means you can effectively consolidate networking gear – making you more efficient and reducing IT engineer installation and configuration time drastically.
But the NPM is so much more than that.
We believe at Crossbeam that as you add more processors, your overall performance should increase linearly. Why pay for processing you can’t use? The NPM blade is like a finely tuned Direct Fuel Injection Engine, sending the drops of gasoline to the cylinders in just the right quantity at just the right time, to achieve maximum power and efficiency.
Like gasoline, the data is finely controlled as it enters the Crossbeam platform via the NPM. Using a Crossbeam technology called Switched Data Paths, we send data dynamically to the individual processor cores and can even re-allocate flows on the fly to maximize system performance.
The result? A well-tuned engine that can achieve true linear scalability as more processing cores are added to the platform. To use the same analogy, an off-the-shelf appliance would be using a manual engine carburetor that struggles to efficiently get the fuel to the engine as the car accelerates. Off-the-shelf architectures rely on a manual intervention to tie a physical interface to a processor core. The problem – what if the traffic load increases on different interfaces? The architecture can not adapt fast enough to cope with the changes in traffic flow.
Bottom line – In order to best leverage your assets and maximize system life, it’s all about control.
NPM Options:
- NPM 8620 – 5Gbps Throughput with 10 x 1GbE SFP Interfaces
- NPM 8650 – 10Gbps Throughput with 10 x 1GbE SFP Interfaces & 2 x 10GbE XFP Interfaces
Mix and match to create a total throughput capacity of up to 40Gbps on the X80 and 20Gbps on the X45
